Cherry Blossoms Along the Meguro River

Meguro is an upscale neighborhood in the Western edge of downtown Tokyo. It's one of the 23 wards of Tokyo, and it has a lot of the foreign embassies in it. The Meguro river gives it its name, and cherry trees line its sides.

The Japanese love the coming of the cherry blossoms as they signal the arrival of spring. In the first weeks of April they attend matsuri (festivals) and hanami (cherry blossom viewing parties). The matsuri associated with Daienji Temple (the local Buddhist shrine by our apartment) will occur on April 8th, so we're pretty excited.

"Hanami" have been a Japanese custom since the 7th century when aristocrats enjoyed looking at beautiful sakura (cherry blossoms) and writing poems & haiku. Nowadays, everyone takes out blankets, gathers with friends in a par, brings out food & generally gets tipsy from wine & sake.

The blossom season is lasting an unusually long time this Spring, as the weather has dropped mid-way through the season. It's great fun to hang out by the river and view the blossoms at night. See some more photos here.

Apartment in Shima-Meguro

We got lucky on the apartment. We were going to pull the trigger on a serviced apartment in Meguro. Just before we did, we checked Craig's list and found Charlie, who was planning to leave for England around the same time two and a half week period we were coming to Tokyo. His flat in Shima-Meguro was near our first apartment in Kami-Meguro. Perfect.

Of course, all the kids care about is watching Japanese game shows and playing with the Japanese language Wii system. Sweet! The sun flooded apartment looks out at Daienji Temple, and we can look down on Cherry Blossoms. See some more pictures of the apartment here.